PRINTING MARKS - Title page of Del parto della Vergine del Sanazaro libri tre, Venice 1588, with the printer's mark of the Gioliti brothers - Copy from the Vatican Library.PRINTING MARKS - Title page of the Quaestiones naturales of Alexander of Aphrodisias, Venice 1541, with the printing mark of Girolamo Scoto. - Copy in the Vatican Library.
MARCHES PRINTING HOUSES. - Printers' marks (or devices, or printers' insignia) are the symbolic signs used since the earliest incunabula (the oldest example being the MainzBible of Fust and Schöffer, of 1462) as a seal of the authorship and authenticity of the work of printers and later of publishers.
Originally they appear at the end of the work, after the colophon: but very soon they change their location, until they become fixed in the title page. In the fifteenth century they generally consist of heraldic insignia or of very schematic designs (printers' seals), of a geometric character (the cross being very frequent), and - only in the last years - accompanied by the initials of the printer's name. With the sixteenth century the composition becomes more complex, until between the end of the 16th century and the beginning of the 17th they often turn into pictures depicting allegorical scenes, architectural backgrounds, human figures with symbolic meaning, weighed down by ornaments of various kinds. Frequent is the use of the motto, almost always in Latin.
It should be borne in mind that many printers made use of several printers' marks: a famous example is given by the two types of the Aldine "anchor."
Bibliography9 worksF. Roth-Scholtz, Thesaurus symbolorum ac emblematum, i. e. insignia bibliopolarum et typographorum, Nuremberg 1730; W. Roberts, Printer's ma
BIBL.: F. Roth-Scholtz, Thesaurus symbolorum ac emblematum, i. e. insignia bibliopolarum et typographorum, Nuremberg 1730; W. Roberts, Printer's marks, London 1893; A. Sorbelli, Intorno all'origine e al significato delle m. t., in Il risorgimento grafico, 20 (1923), pp. 240-45; G. Avanzi, s. v. in Enc. Ital., XXII, p. 211 ff.; G. Fumagalli, Bibliografia, 4th ed., Milan 1935, pp. 164-76. - For studies relating to the printers' marks of individual countries see, besides the cited article by G. Avanzi, the bibliographical appendix of the book by D. Fava, Manuale degli incunaboli, Milan [1939], p. 253 ff., to which may be added P. A. Tosi, Facsimile di alcune imprese di stampatori italiani del sec. XV e XVI, ibid. 1838; L. C. Silvestre, Marques typographiques, Paris 1853-67; G. Bresciano, Insegne di tipografi e librai napoletani del XV e XVI sec., in Bollettino del bibliofilo, 1 (1919), pp. 94-96 and 129-56; A. Sorbelli, Le m. t. bolognesi nel sec. XVI, Milan [1923]; L. Bouland, Marques de livres anciennes et modernes, Paris 1925.
Pratesi, Alessandro. “Marche Tipografiche.” In Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. VIII, col. 30. Città del Vaticano: Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1952. https://azioneromana.com/article/marche-tipografiche.
MLA
Pratesi, Alessandro. “Marche Tipografiche.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. VIII, Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1952, col. 30. Azione Romana, https://azioneromana.com/article/marche-tipografiche.
BibTeX
@incollection{ec8_marche_tipografiche,
author = {Pratesi, Alessandro},
title = {Marche Tipografiche},
booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica},
volume = {VIII},
pages = {30},
note = {Cited by column},
publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico},
address = {Città del Vaticano},
year = {1952},
url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/marche-tipografiche}
}
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